


The Goddess of the Seas

by FallingInAWill



Series: The Sea Goddess Returns [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: And Seas feels more in line with my theme, Brief speculation about what could be west of Westeros, Everyone after Arya and Gendry is just mentioned, F/M, I don't think she would accept that title as easily as of the Seas, I was tempted to make her the Goddess of Death but, If Arya returned after figuring herself out, Lost Limb, Post Season 8, Post Series, arya returns to westeros, mentions of injury, of her moving past defining herself by the past and what she's experienced.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-09 22:58:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18926701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FallingInAWill/pseuds/FallingInAWill
Summary: “How did you get in here?”“I snuck in.”“I heard you outside. I’m hoping there isn’t a dead guard out there that’ll need dealing with.”“Not many people like saying no to me anymore. He called me The-”“The Undead Wolf. People call you lots of things nowadays.”Also known as:Arya returns to Westeros different but grown. She returns with a fleet and treasure and appears in Gendry's forge in Storm's End. She has an explanation for him as well as an order after 10 years West.





	The Goddess of the Seas

He speaks before she can. 

“How did you get in here?” 

There’s a pause, emphasized when his hammer connects with the sword he’s been crafting. It’d be easy to mount the blade into a stave, he notes as he doesn’t look up. He wouldn’t know where to look. He’d heard her muffled voice from the hall but that had been a few long minutes ago. He hadn’t heard the door open or close and hadn’t heard her stalking around him in what he was certain were easy circles. 

She finally speaks, “I snuck in.”

Gendry rolls his eyes and wonders if she can see it. “I heard you outside. I’m hoping there isn’t a dead guard out there that’ll need dealing with.”

She laughs and he pretends not to feel his stomach clench. “Not many people like saying no to me anymore. He called me The-”

“The Undead Wolf. People call you lots of things nowadays.”

There’s a beat, shorter than before and he’s probably surprised her by cutting her off, “...What else do they call me?”

“The Undead Wolf. She of Many Faces. The Dawn Bringer. Strangeress-”

Unable to be the only one cut off, Arya cuts in, “I killed a man for calling me that last one.” He hears footsteps near his right but he continues staring down at the blade, raising the hammer up over his shoulder and bringing it down on the still heated metal. It sings, loud and raucous. “Even I can see that it’s rude to name someone after a god they don’t follow.”

Gendry sighs and brings the hammer down again. “Most people just call you dead.” He sniffs, “Until recently, at least.” 

“Let me guess, Sansa sent word that I was in Winterfell?”

He scoffs, “Sansa is more loyal to you than she is to me.”

More footsteps, around his back this time, “Which is why I thought she would have. If not her, then who?”

“‘Only other person who would know. King Bran.” 

He’d received the raven two fortnights prior. A simple promise that Arya would be arriving soon, first to stop in the North and then to travel to Storm’s End. It’d just been addressed to ‘Gendry’ and he couldn’t help but appreciate the lack of a last name. Ten years had been enough time to realize that being a legitimized Baratheon wasn’t what he needed. He’d been sure it would be, certain that he needed the name. The land and the titles were extras, additions to the prestige of his name. They were meant to be, rather. 

Now he silently mourns for the days when he was simply a Waters and when people didn’t look at him with the knowledge that if he weren’t the last of his name, he wouldn’t be their lord. That without Ser Davos he’d have made more than enough errors to be beheaded years ago. 

Arya clicks her tongue, “Traitor.”

“‘S probably annoyed you didn’t visit.”

“Bran doesn’t get annoyed.”

Gendry shrugs, “Maybe you should have visited him to ask if he was.” 

Her voice isn’t hurt but rather tense as she replies, “Bran knows that I’m alive. He knows everything these days. He’ll fool everyone else into thinking he only searches for important things but at least he knows what actually is important.” He finally hears footsteps to his left but he glares down at the metal. It’s too cool to do anything with at this point. Any attempt to hammer it out would just weaken it. It’d break and someone would likely die without their sword. “I killed the last man that looked at me the way you’re looking right now.”

It’s been ten years. It’s been long enough that she could be someone he doesn’t recognize. No longer Arry, no longer Arya, no longer Arya Stark of Winterfell. It could be someone wearing her face, like the ones Sansa whispered about in the halls between meetings when neither of them had any new information. They never did. Still, he opens his mouth anyway. 

“Aye? Then are ya’ going to kill me?” 

“Do you want me to?”

“Would it matter?”

“I could.”

“Bloody hell Arya don’t you realize that I know-” He finally looks up, voice cutting off when he registers the sight in front of him. 

She is breathing even and consistent breaths. Her hair is longer now, shaggy and braided where she likely couldn’t get a comb through easily. There’s a wooden direwolf around her neck. Her coat is Tully Blue, fish scales embroidered into the fabric that doesn’t look like one he’s seen anywhere before, and worn half on. Her belt it is same, Needle and the Valyrian dagger she used to kill the Night King on either side of her waist. 

She’s missing an arm. 

It takes a second for him to realize that it’s not crossed behind her back, that the coat is half on because there’s nothing to go through the other sleeve. The grey billowy top she has on is cut off and sewn shut where her stump ends. It’s her right that’s missing, and relief hits him only to be followed up with sickness. At least, he thinks while forcing his stomach to settle as his racing heart is a lost cause, she could still protect herself. 

“Sansa already cried over it.” She says, staring him down and he guesses he was silent and taking her in for far too long. “Don’t you start that up, now.”

His eyes are wet, he realizes with a start and instead of wiping them he just blinks once, twice, three times and juts his chin towards her stump. “Did you kill the man that did that to you?”

The corner of her lips tweak up ever so slightly, “It was his fault for taking the wrong one.”

“Good.” His voice cracks on the single word but she doesn’t make any sign of noticing not that he expected her to. He picks up the blade and walks it over to a basin of water. It still hisses at the sudden cooling and he glances over his shoulder to see her watching him. “How long ago?”

She sniffs, nose wrinkling as she thinks about it, “Three years or so. Two and a half before I started to sail my ships east again.”

It’s somehow surprising and not at the same time. Of course the Dawn Bringer- Arya, Arya, he corrects himself. He can think her name again finally. Of course Arya would rather learn to deal with one arm gone than sail home immediately. “What about the rest of the new ones?” There’s scars along her collar and neck. They trail up until scattering across her face in tiny blemishes. 

Gendry catches the half smirk on her face as he brings the blade back to his workbench, “Older.” She says, confidently. Proudly. She’d had something to prove in the time after losing her arm. Not a single new scar would coat her. 

He lays the blade on his bench and fully faces her. “What are you doing here, Arya?”

“There were lots of things west of Westeros.” He narrows his eyes at her, “People. Land. Treasure. Men and women called themselves gods and people believed them. One of light, darkness, fire, earth, wind, the seas, I met some of them.”

“What are you-”

She continues on, unperturbed, “I had three ships by the time I met the Sea God. He was a captain, running a shoddy crew full of rapers and murderers. He’d heard of my ships, heard I wasn’t just someone surviving in his seas but that I was the one who killed the damned Night King.”

“Arya.”

“He stole my arm so I stole his women, his ships, and his title. The people in those seas call me the Sea Goddess now. I’m not certain I like it.”

“Arya.”

“No one there calls me Arya, but they liked to trade. Sansa was right to load my ship with Westerosi treasure. I brought back a fleets worth.”

“Arya.”

“I met a woman who ran a small island on her own. She wasn’t married and she didn’t have any little ones. They’ve been doing what Bran will do for generations. She thought I wanted her land and it took a lot to convince her I wasn’t interested.”

“Arya.”

“It took 6 months to make it back to Winterfell. Most of my crew made the journey. We buried those who didn’t into the seas and-”

“ARYA!”

Her face crumbles into annoyance and he growls out, “What are you telling me all of this for? Do you want a fucking congr-”

“I’m telling you-” She cuts him off, “About my travels. About my time making maps and gathering treasure. I’m telling you why I came back.”

Gendry crosses his arms over his chest and stares her down, “Yeah? ‘Cause it sounds like a lot of reasons to not come home.”

She rolls his eyes but he isn’t fooled. He sees the flash of exhaustion on her face and he wonders how long she’d been traveling to Storm’s End. When the last time she slept was. “If you’re going to be a stubborn arse I’ll save this for another couple of years.”

“Aye, leave again all on your own without bothering to say goodbye.” It’s not fair and he knows it. She did say goodbye, just not to him. He hadn’t said a thing to her either, the council to crown Bran as king spent silent and pretending he wasn’t looking at her. 

She bares her fangs and snarls back, “I had to! No one else would have let me leave by myself!”

He crosses the floor and immediately knows it’s a mistake when all he can think about is pulling her into his arms but he fires back anyway, “Bullshit Arya, you told Bran and Sansa and Jon-”

“Jon was exiled! Bran was to be King of the Six Kingdoms, and Sansa was to be Queen in Winterfell. They couldn’t go with me!” 

“You could have told me! I would have-”

She takes a half step closer to him and he realizes she had grown at least an inch or two. “Don’t you dare lie to me. Look me in the eyes and tell me that you wouldn’t have stowed away on my ship. Tell me you wouldn’t have tried to convince me to let you come.”

His shoulders fall slightly and she’s right. Arya lets out a huff, the change in his posture all she needed to know. She starts to walk away but he takes his chance and wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her against his chest. There’s a split second where she starts to reach for her dagger but seems to remember where she is. “Would it have mattered?” He gets out passed the lump in his throat. 

Arya stares up at him. Her eyes flicker as she searches for something that he can’t figure out. “I needed to leave by myself.” She whispers, voice suddenly soft and in a tone he’s never quite heard from her before. “Gendry I-” She swallows, “I needed to figure out who I was. And it wasn’t the Dawn Bringer or the Undead Wolf or Lady Stark or an acolyte.”

“You were Arya Stark of Winterfell.” Gendry says, voice raw as he hears his name leave her lips for the first time in so long. 

She shakes her head, “And what the bloody hell did that mean when even I couldn’t find it behind everything that had happened. I wanted- I needed to figure that out and I fucking earned that, Gendry. I earned that.”

His arm slacks but she doesn’t move away from him and he hates and blesses the bubbles of hope and earnest want in his chest. “You did.” He quietly assents. “I’m-”

“I’m not. I’m not sorry and I don’t want you to be either. I left. I know what that meant. What it probably still means. I liked to pretend that it didn’t matter, that I never said goodbye, but it did. And I’m still not sorry.”

“Arya, why are you here?” It’s not accusatory anymore. It’s quiet and bordering on broken. She hesitates, “I’m a stubborn bull of a man who still barely knows how to be a lord but Arya I- I need to know. Why are you here?”

Arya’s eyes search again and he holds his breath as her long hand comes up to rest against his chest. “I realized that I’d stopped hating titles when everywhere I went the people called me their goddess. Goddess of the Seas. Goddess of Travelers. Goddess of Survival. The Pirate Goddess. I stopped hating it.” His chest rises and falls under her touch and she swallows and he knows that even ten years haven’t made this easier on her. She’s still part the girl who cried when she offered herself as his family. “I stopped minding the few that still called me all those other titles too, even Lady. I killed a man who called me ‘his lady’, though.”

His chest shudder and he has to force himself to not close his eyes. “Arya…”

“I’m not a lady, not like any other lords wives, but I’ll be your lady, Gendry. If you’ll have me. Marry me.”

He can’t help but laugh and the tiniest smile forms on her lips. “You’re ordering me to marry you?”

“Aye. Sansa said you were unmarried, no betrothed either. Davos said you’d sworn you were too busy learning how to be highborn to bother.”

“You spoke to Davos?”

Her smile widens, just a bit. “Why do you think no one has bothered us? My crew and him have distracted everyone with the gifts I bought along with me.”

“Treasure?” 

“I can’t order you to marry me without bringing an offering, now can I?”

He can’t stop himself from mirroring her smile. “You brought far more than necessary.”

Arya raises a brow, a thin scar cutting it in half, “And how would you know? You don’t know how much-”

“Arya shut up, gods, you say I’m the stubborn one. You didn’t need to bring anything else.”

“I’ve only got one arm now, it’ll be hard to convince your houses to accept a half-lady without the riches.”

“You’re alive.” He says. His voice is filled with a certain reverence that she’d heard on the grain sacks before the Long Battle. Honest and true in a way that is still certain. It was unlike the excited rush he’d come to her with his original proposal, it was real. She’d learned to stop doubting that he’d meant it when he said that none of his sudden prestige mattered without her, but she can’t shake the feeling that a piece of him was looking past her when he’d fallen to one knee. 

“I’m alive.” She says like a promise. “I’m alive and my crew will be continuing my voyage without me. The Sea Goddess is staying in Westeros ten moons out of the year.” 

He sucks in a breath, overwhelmed by the knowledge that she was staying. “And the other two?”

Arya slowly lets out a breath and his follows suit. “I’ve learned that maybe it’s better to let people know that I’m alive more than once every ten years.” She smiles again, “Plus I’ll need to make sure they don’t fall to shit without me. They’ll bring more Westerosi treasure and bring back more from their lands. The trips are shorter now that we know how to survive there but I’ll still meet them part of the way.”

“And you want to stay here? With me?”

“I already told you to marry me, didn’t I?”

“Yes.” He breaths, “And yes.” 

“I want a long engagement. I want to tell you about my travels. I want you to tell me what the last years have been like.”

“Anything you want, my lady.”

She can’t help but roll her eyes as she pushes up on her toes to kiss him as fiercely as she did the first time, but without the dread of death excusing it.


End file.
